As civilizations bumped into one another in antiquity, they tended to discover that they had many different gods. But since most pantheons break down gods into somewhat similar areas of expertise, the greeks just figured that the barbarians had funny names for their gods, and combined the two. This eventually got to the point where you could slam almost any two gods with similar areas of expertise together to get something subtly new. Some of my favorite gods, like Mithras and Hermes Trismegistus, come from the intercultural mashups (Persio-Roman and Greco-Egyptian, respectively) that were going on at this time.

[Note: One of the meaner intellectual things Christians did in their efforts at cleaning out the old gods was a tactic called Euhemerism. This revolved around the basic assumption that all 'gods' were actually just people who did interesting things which were in turn remembered poorly. Though they were horrified centuries later to have the rationalist interpretation of religion turned against them by serious-minded Germans, they happily spun tales of barbarian kings and tricky sorcerers who passed themselves off as gods. This was their counter to the sprawling pantheons of late antiquity.]

Interestingly enough, a somewhat parallel process was going the other way, taking people and ascribing to them them powers over aspects of daily life...by which I mean canonization. Catholic Saints are a great place to go to look for adaptations of and placeholders for old polytheism, as saints, especially the 14 Holy Helpers, who can intercede on behalf of the petitioner much as the old gods had. Just as feast days were overlaid with Christian holidays and folk traditions were retconned as christian ones, patron saints gradually appeared to offer help in the areas of their expertise. [Note: while there's a lengthy theological explanation of how you actually pray through the saints to god, the subtleties were usually lost on your average illiterate peasant who just wants some hedge against wild pigs eating his crops]. Saints are also a great place to look for 'the weird old christianity,' before it got uptight and Protestant. For example: St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers, reportedly stood 18 feet tall and had the head of a dog.

From polytheism saints came and to polytheism they went, especially in many areas of the African diaspora, where slaves hid their gods by disguising them, and sometimes combining them with the saints. Sometimes this could lead to interesting juxtapositions. Shango, for instance, raging god of thunder and sky father in the Yoruba tradition, was identified either with the bookish Saint Jerome or the virginal Saint Barbara. I for one, am all in favor of crazy legends and folk charms.

So I propose that the international year of Polytheism, in the interest of kick-starting the spread of polytheism, hold an open call for syncretism and de-euhemerism. Combine your favorite gods with modern saints or legendary figures of our times. Let a thousand syncretic gods bloom. Say, for instance, one of those sainted old nuns like Mother Teresa or Mother Cabrini...they might make a good match with a hearth goddess like Demeter, or if you want to push a little farther, with Cybele, mother goddess of the wild earth. Or perhaps Saint Stephen (Istvan) of Hungary, the badass magyar warrior king whose severed hand is a national relic, might well be identified with Labraid Lámh Dhearg (Labraid of the Red Hand), the Celtic sun god whose legecy lives on in the red hand of Ulster.

Secondly, while the innermost unifier today might be the corporate anthem, the postmodern popular culture finds its fullest expression in the mashup. Photoshop contests at worth1000 and gizmodo already supply stunning juxtapositions of new and old, not to mention myriad musical creations (some of which are not indicative of regressive listening). So after creating your syncretic deity or reading about someone else's, why not slam together aspects of the sources into something new? Photoshop your god and saint together! Combine their godly images into a new deity for the 21st century.Why stop there? Cut-up their liturgies like a William S. Burroughs novel! Take their sacred songs and get your bootleg on. What could be better?

Johannes asked me to write a review of my favorite god/ess for monochrom's Polytheism blog. The Vienna-based group announced 2007 (ad infinitum) as the year of polytheism: the basic idea is to overcome unnecessary borders drawn by religion and - this is just my personal interpretation - to post-teenage religion.

What do I mean by post-teenage? Once you're in your twenties, you're statistically a lot more likely to rather accept and adopt various styles, be in the field of music or fashion or whatever, than to just hold on to one "scene". Religion in that respect mostly is far behind pop culture, even though during the last decade I sensed a very interesting shift in terms of polytheism, especially amongst economically blessed women in their 40ies who are interested in "esoteric knowledge". Nonetheless, many followers of different gods still don't hesitate to convince others that their own super-being is far superior to the ridiculous error their adversaries refer to as supreme master. Funnily enough just a couple hours before I was asked to write this text I saw a very funny poster at mmoabc.com, which depicts a woman carrying a sign that says: "Says the bible: war is sent by god." The picture is part of series of spoofs of the well-know motivational motives featuring a colorful image and some silly words. The text accompanying this picture says: "Religious War. Killing each other to see who has the better imaginary friend." And this I believe is just what the year of polytheism is all about:

The "International Year of Polytheism" (powered by monochrom) wants to overcome the epoch of the monotheistic worldviews (and its derivatives such as "The West" and "The Arab World") through the reconstruction of a polytheistic multiplicity in which countless gods and goddesses will eventually neutralize each other.

But even though it is easy for me to support the idea and to feel frighteningly in tune with the great polytheist movement, I'm having hell of a hard time answering the question about my favorite god/desse/s, since I worship countless of them. Some live in my flat, some I talk to on a regularly basis, some I had sexual intercourse with and some I have never seen nor even dared to imagine in their full glory. And what exactly does favorite mean in that respect? Is my favorite god the one who brews the coffee just like I like it or is he the engineer who engineered the robot who built my bike? Or the guy who gives me this incredibly self-satisfied feeling when I'm flying high above the clouds in my wildest dream? Or is she the one who made every piece of organic matter live in such a way that we can interpret it as living matter if we want to? Is he the one who gave us freedom or is she the one who enslaved us?

There are many favorite gods, but like in the famous Kung Fu series featuring David Carradine, when the decade of training at the Shaolin monastery is done, only one of the grad students can become the new master. And if all of them surrender their title as their code of honor requires that means they still have to fight. So if I have to give one definite answer I go with the great green frog god, the one who is constantly watching over all frog- and non-frog creatures and makes all other gods tick. Even though Buddha is quite a cuddly roughneck, too...

A former employee of a Tennessee insurance company is objecting to a "ceremony" held at the construction site of a new building because it called on "the gods on the structure" for "good fortune and fertility."

The report on the ceremony came in an e-mail from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, which is constructing a new nearly $300 million office building at Chattanooga.

A spokeswoman for the company told WND the report comes apparently from an employee dispatched by the company to celebrate the "topping" ceremony of the building, with the report then transmitted to the insurance company's e-mail list.

"Upon arriving at the construction site we were greeted by the workers preparing to lift this tree with the crane. Why were they lifting the tree to the top of building one? Well according to the Scandinavian tradition from long ago, after the final foundation is complete you are to raise a tree to the top of a building to bless it. It was to 'bless' the house with fertility. But people still use the tradition to bless the structure with good fortune. It is a request for a blessing from the gods on the structure to provide good fortune and fertility," the company's e-mail said.

On a recent trip to Budapest, I documented proof of paranormal activity at St. Stephen's Basilica.
In this video, we see a ghostbuster cleaning up what appears be some sort of ectoplasm spill. Watch it only if you are a brave soul with an open mind.

But aren't the monotheisms the bearers of a structural violence because they gave birth to an idea of unique Truth, excluding any competing expression?

One can always interpret the monotheisms as sacrificial archaisms, but the texts don't prove that they are such. It's said that the Psalms of the Bible are violent, but who speak up in the psalms if not the victims of the violence of the myths: "The bulls of Balaam encircle me and are about to lynch me"? The Psalms are like a magnificent lining on the outside, but when turned inside out they show a bloody skin. They are typical of the violence that weighs on humans and on the refuge that they find in their God.
Our intellectual fashions don't want to see anything but violence in these texts, but where does the danger really come from? Today, we live in a dangerous world where all the mob movements are violent. This crowd or mob was already violent in the Psalms. Likewise in the story of Job. It – the "friends" – demanded of Job to acknowledge his guilt; they put him through a real Moscow trial. His is a prophetic trial. Is it not that of Christ, adulated by the crowds, then rejected at the moment of his Passion? These narratives announce the cross, the death of the innocent victim, the victory over all the sacrificial myths of antiquity.
Is it so different in Islam? Islam has also formidable prophetic insights about the relation between the crowd, the myths, victims, and sacrifice. In the Muslim tradition, the ram Abel sacrificed is the same as the one God sent to Abraham so that he could spare his son. Because Abel sacrificed rams, he did not kill his brother. Because Cain did not sacrifice animals, he killed his brother. In other words, the sacrificial animal avoids the murder of the brother and the son. That is, it furnishes an outlet for violence. Thus Mohammed had insights which are on the plane of certain great Jewish prophets, but at the same time we find a concern for antagonism and separation from Judaism and Christianity that may negate our interpretation.

[Maker Faire ...] Everyone and their brother who was within driving distance seems to have already reported on the event, but there were a few things I wanted to personally touch on that I found most interesting.

monochrom’s Divining Pod

The Monochrom crew was back in the states on their Internation Year of Polytheism tour this past weekend. Large balloons, a supply of helium, and small children contributed to an attempt at sending one lucky person to the heavens. To quote Johannes, it was a “semi-total success”. There are tons of videos and photos floating around [...]

Dear hostile deity,

I'm sorry if we offended you, but until you identify which "one true god" you are, we cannot take steps to appease you. We included the names of over 90 deities on our "Divining Pod" including several of you jealous gods. You sign your email "You know who I am", but in fact we do not. Are you one of the monotheistic deities such as Yahweh, Ahura Mazda, Akhenaten?
Or perhaps just one of those egocentric heads of a pantheon, such as Zeus or Ra?

In any case, it is time to stop being a bully. Those other gods are your peers and you need to treat them with some respect. Chances are that many of them have been worshiped by man longer than you, whoever you are. They say jealousy is a sign of low self-esteem.

We have nothing but respect for you, and all deities. You are a great god, I'm sure, but there are so many deities competing for our attention that we simply cannot spend every second worshiping you. Please don't take this as an offense or a slight. We'll always make room for you at the table.
Signed,
monochrom

Subject: Mortals, ye shall fail!
To: polytheism@monochrom.at

Abandon all hope. I am the all powerful god. All those other gods are suckers. You have offended me, the one true god, with your blasphemy. I shall never let your "Divining Pod" off the ground.
Signed,
You know who I am.

Karni Mata temple is a 600 year old temple at Deshnoke, Rajasthan, India. Karni Mata is believed to be the incarnation of Hindu goddess Durga. The peculiarity of this temple is that thousands of rats are worshipped here. The rats are seen as holy, owing to the belief that the souls of the followers of Karni Mata are in these rats and thus they must be looked after. Worshipers also eat and drink from the same bowls as the rats.

I am convinced that so many of us (by "us" I mean young, urban, hip, clever, white, etc. people in Europe, Northamerica and similar boring landscapes) reject god or any kind of theological xyz-ism because we get bored so easily. We are the multi-taskers, and to think that one god is responsible for eeeeverything is just too plain simple, too boring, too easy an explanation for all the nonsense out there. And all the beautiful things, too. Cats, photographic paper, the sun, grass and ice-cream, all down to one god? I cannot believe that one god is even interested in creating all these things one after another. I'm sure God likes ice-cream, but what if He doesn't like broccoli? Do you think he'd have created broccoli if He hated it? Give God a break, He deserves it. He's exhausted.

That's why I'm so fond of multiple gods, deities and spirits. I'm especially fond of the Japanese way of doing (in this instance believing) things. The Japanese pick and mix their points of reference. Shintoism, buddhism and apparently some other isms I've never even heard of. Christian traditions also appear more and more, in weddings for instance. They are free to choose whichever ritual they want, at any point in life. I like that a lot.

I also like that so many objects or fortunes (also misfortunes) have their own god. Some are male, some are female. There are deities for trees, for fishing, for good luck, for fire, for earthquakes, and also for rice. The latter god is my pick: Inari.

Inari is the god and godess of food, in particular rice, agriculture, foxes, and, curiously, industry. Each year he or she - Inari can take on any gender - descends from a mountain to the rice fields. The fox is Inari's messenger and it is believed that he/she can assume a fox's shape. If someone fucks with Inari, he/she will take on the form of a giant spider to teach them a lesson.

I really like the idea that each different "thing" out there has its own god that represents it or protect it. And yes, that shall include rice and cats. If you're having rice, thank god, but its god. More than anything else, doing this shows some form of respect for what's around you; just like saying thanks if someone picks up your gloves when you dropped them on the street without noticing.

Another reason why I like Inari is his favorite dish that is being offered to him in his shrines: Fried bean curd parcels that are stuffed with - you guessed it - rice. I absolutely LOVE the fact that "(f)ried tofu is believed to be a favorite food of Japanese foxes, and an Inari-zushi roll has pointed corners that resemble fox ears, thus reinforcing the association." (Smyers, Karen Ann. The Fox and the Jewel: Shared and Private Meanings in Contemporary Japanese Inari Worship)

These little parcels are delicious and usually eaten by regular humans as breakfast. This is hard to find outside of Japan, but Asian food stores will sell you cans of these tofu-shells (called aburage), and you can make the stuff at home. Try it, it's great!

Oh, and before I forget: these little parcels of goodness are called inari-sushi. What else.

Shiva has different aspects, that appear different times. He is often the destroyer, and will appear as a naked ascetic accompanied by demons. Sometimes times Shiva is seen as the god of meditation and asceticism. He will be depicted sitting cross-legged with his eyes half-closed. Another common form is that of Shiva Nataraja. This is Shiva engaged in a cosmic dance. It is believed that the energy from this dance sustains the cosmos, and when Shiva is finished with this dance, this universe will end and a new one will begin. Shiva is often depicted carrying a trident, and the three tips of this weapon represent the creation, protection (or sustaining), and destruction of the universe. He might be carrying an ax, which is to symbolize the severing of ties to the material world.

Having spent quite a few of my formative years with an imagined "no gods, no masters"-sticker on my back. I find the notion of a god hard to take. I don't even like people calling Michel Platini a football god and my private opinion that "Nick Cave is god" (done years ago as a review of one of his records) is parts respect of the art of Nick Cave, parts sarcasm of either the status of Nick Cave in the alternative rock world or of the status of god in the overall world. Moreover, Nick Cave would probably deeply resent the label, old monotheist that he is. "Get ready for love" and "there is a war coming from above" and all of that. You know your Nick Cave as well as I do. Back to the theme: even in super hero comics I could never warm up to godlike figures. That big one in Silver Surfer was damn arrogant. On the other I hand I thoroughly enjoy movies and comics turning Christian mythology on its head with cleverness (from "Hellboy" to "Dogma" and from "God's Army" to "Constantine" - hey two of those are comic movies) but that is probably just because Christian mythology is one I know quite well and therefore I can enjoy it a lot more as a backdrop mythology for an action movie. Sort of like James Bond movies or movies about the second world war.

Nevertheless, there is one god, or at least divine personality, that I feel a slight inclination towards, probably because he is a funny guy, likes to drink and party and wants to enjoy life like a neverending spring break party. And he is a musician on top. For centuries he has upset the early Christians due to his loose and easy lifestyle (and that of his followers) but as you know Christianity and its awkward seriousness - I mean, Calvin come on, you weren't all that serious about determination right? - won out in the end. They even used his shape (goats feet, horns) as a form for the devil himself. Christians are fun-spoilers, I tell you.

Drinking was a serious part of Pan's lifestyle as was lusting and leering. He was one of the Dionysus-posse and spent his days the way the rest of us would like to if we would be honest. He had that aromatic essence of lust around him that makes women act like Robbie Williams entered the room. He played the flute, which is the ancient equivalent of the electric guitar.
Of course, I am talking about Pan, as he was known to the Greek. In the Roman mythology he was called Faunus. But like P.Diddy and Puff Daddy, that doesn't mean much except that the times have changed. Somewhat. He is the son of Hermes and either the nymph Dryops, Kallisto or the goat called Aix. (I like country-life too, but the blame here is on Hermes - the god of luxury designer handbags - not on the offspring, right?) Officially, Pan is the god of the woods and nature, but then again, when he was around, there wasn't much more than woods and nature. I wouldn't take the words of shepherds as an account for anything, after all the stories they had about the wolf and such.

By the way, the word panic is also derived from him, because when he is disturbed during his siesta he takes revenge e.g. by chasing the flock around and spreading "panic fright".

Why not go for the big man himself: Dionysus? As a god of fornication and ecstasy, the idea is close. But Dionysus is also a very busy man, having to keep all that fornication going and seeing to it that the endless line of suntanned beauties never stops in the land of sunshine. Pan, on the other hand, has a much more easy and laid-back life. Everybody likes him in the crowd, so why head for the big spot. It is a kind of savoir vivre thing.

Finally, some myths insinuate that Pan died a long time ago. But I think he lives on in the form of Hugh Hefner. Every hip hop video tells me that he is still around. And if I get invited to the mansion, I will be there on time.

I remember one fateful day in my life when my brother and me were young boys. This story is is all about our younger sister who we treated meanly even though she never did anything to us. And I mean it! Yes, in those days we acted like a bunch of naughty rascals.

At the time there was a tasty product on the market. It was called "Moby", after Herman Melvilles' great novel "Moby-Dick". Come to think of it, it didn't have too much to do with whale-hunting; it was just half a liter of buttermilk enhanced with strawberry-flavor. Not one of us had ever read the book, and we liked to drink
it anyhow.

My sister had a pack of "Moby". She left it trustingly in the fridge over night. She shouldn't have done that, knowing that there were two little beggars living under the same roof.

Drunk with our own stupidity we cut little cubes of sausage into her moby that night when we found it waiting defenselessly for its loving mistress. We laughed loudly about our new creation which we called "Moby Wurst".

Unsurprisingly, the next morning brought a bad start into that bright summers' day for my poor little sister. It took years, but eventually she forgave us for being such childish pricks.

That is because she is soft and gracious, in stark contrast to Challalamma, the Indian goddess of buttermilk, who would never agree to the unwanted marriage with the so far unnamed god of sausage. In her supernatural anger, she hasn't granted me one day of joy ever since the mobywurst incident.

So I pray to her from the bottom of my heart:
   >>Challalamma please hurt my brother instead of me!
   It was all his idea!<<

When I was in Japan last year, I stumbled over a god that can be found in many Shinto-shrines. He was presented as a fat man carrying a big sack. Wow, isn't that Santa? I asked myself and the people around. No, they explained, the name of this deity is Daikokuten and he is one of the shichi fukujin, the seven deities of good fortune. Tap the mallet on the ground in front of him three times and your wish is granted. Well, it worked. So: what's up with Daikokuten?
You can find his picture in many kitchens and as Netsuke, small wooden figures, maybe the ancestors of the small thingies japanese people like to tie on to their mobile phones.

You see a fat, smiling man, wearing a red hat, having thick earlaps - a reference to buddha? - holding a big sack in one hand, a hammer in the other. It is said that when he hits the sack with the hammer, it will be filled with goods. Usually he is sitting on a rice bale. Sometimes a rat, his animal partner, is with him. Sometimes you have to rub the figure, especially if the wish has to do with healing, and sometimes you have to tap it. But in any case you get something from this god. So the idea of Daikokuten being an ancestor of Santa Clause is quite obvious.

I always asked myself where the tradition of Santa Claus comes from. Here in middle Europe we still know the tradition of Saint Niclaus (Nikolaus) and an ongoing dispute in Austria asks wether children should get their presents on December 5, the day of St. Nikolaus, or on Christmas Eve, the eve of Jesus's birth.

In my hometown, St. Nikolaus is always accompanied by a Krampus, a devilish figure wearing a fur and chains. They usually play the good guy/bad guy game to threaten little children and urge them to be good. Nikolaus also has a small book with him where all the good and bad you have done in last year is written down. In my childhood I had much respect for the two until I found out that my uncle was dressed up as the Nikolaus.

St. Nicholas of Myra (lived around the year 300), as we learned in kindergarden, was the ancient name of a bishop who lived around 100km south west of Antalya / Turkey. There are many legends and miracle stories about St. Nicholas. It is said that he was already a saint at birth, and that he took his mothers breast on the days of abstinence (Wednesday and Friday) only once. Other legends include healing miracles.

In switzerland I found most of the original and wonderous traditions about Santa Claus. They know him as "Samichlaus" in many cities (e.g. Küssnacht am Rigi, Kanton Schwyz, Switzerland), still dressed as a bishop. It starts with the tradition of "Chlaus-Chlöpfen" (wakeup Claus) - this is done with huge whips, which are used to make noise to wake up Santa sleeping in his cave. Note that these special whips can make a noise above 100 db. I guess Santa can't sleep through that.

Also interesting: the tradition of "chlausjagen" (hunting claus), where children dress up with masks and go from house to house to get presents. It is still present in the city of Hallwil, Kanton Aaargau, Switzerland, where you can find the original form: There are six different masks, called "Herr" (the master), "Jompfere" (the virgin), "Joggeli" (Jacob, the servant), "Wächter" (the guard), "Möörech" (the black) and "Root" (the red). So you see here are only six of the seven deities of the shichi fukujin left. Which one is missing? And why?
I guess I'll start with mapping the ancient masks of central europe with the deities of India to find out. Stay tuned.

To make clear that Gods are categorically different from normal people there has been a long tradition of trickster Gods spanning almost every religious system. Examples include Bampana of the Aboriginals, Cercopes from Greek mythology (who dared even to fool around with bigshot Heracles), to the Q of the Star Trek Next Generation epos.

A trickster God or Goddess is one that disturbs the monotonous lifestyle of utilitarian human culture concerned with solving everyday problems, making profits or conquering worlds.

Trickster deities cross out the semiotics of such a type of reality by swapping around its constituent particles. This is remarkable in light of the fact that most big and bourgeois Gods and Goddesses are there to make sense, to be masters of their fiefdom, to explain how various things came to exist exactly the way they are. Thus they are predecessors of the monotheist Super Gods such as Yahweh, God or Allah which are seen more as invisible omnipotent constructs of meaning than traditional deities who exist more in the physical world.

In contrast to that, trickster deities are smaller sidekick deities of a nomadic lifestyle and appearance. They stand for the ever breeding potential of "anti-sense" - which is a necessary flip side of "meaning" (in philosophical terms).

Trickster Gods mock people, change things in an unpredictable way, turn everything around and upside down. They are like troublesome and annoying insects that whiz around one's head. They are anti-bourgeois because they represent the hidden and repressed knowledge that civilization is built on cruelty, suppression and lies.
In North American Indian mythologies the most famous trickster God is Coyote, which also appears as Akba Atatdia, First Scolder, Old Man or Old Man Coyote. He is a bit of a pop star in Native American's history because he incorporates a promise of freedom which has to be unattainable (to form the basis for the modernist notion of freedom), but seems to be even more attractive because of that fact.

What made Coyote so popular is that he was always good for a story. Most of the time this story was more than a mere story... it's more like a pop song that you want to sing and whistle while working through your stupid everyday life.

One very popular story tells of how one of his pranks ended up creating the milky way. This was when Black God (who was kind of a huge amount of black space) tried to make himself up by putting stars all over his black spaceness that he took out of his pocket. Coyote snatched the pocket to try out how the stars would taste but didn't like them so he spat them back into Black God's face. Now his pocket was empty and when Black God was shaking it out only dust fell from it on his black spaceness. The Dust that sticked there and formed our galaxy.

Another story reports how he distracted and interrupted Human Maker while he tried to make men from clay. Due to Coyote's pestering Human Maker and ruining his concentration, all men would turn out to be different by colour, stability and quality.

By that act Coyote, who pranks not only men but also his fellow deities, is important as a kind of "humanize button" in the boring technocratic machinery of the Gods.
Through his productive abuse and creative misreading, he helps the world of the Gods and Goddesses make sense by accounting for things that otherwise wouldn't. In short he is a typical punk mash up of Bill Gates and Johnny Rotten.

My favorite deity is Bast (Bastet, Ubasti, Pasht), the cat goddess from Egyptian mythology. She protects cats and people who love cats. I also like her because of her name which literally means (female) devourer. As the daughter of Ra, she was originally a goddess of the sun and usually depicted as a fierce lioness. She was the protector of the Pharao, named Lady of the Flames. Later, her name developed into Bastet, a variation of Bast with an additional female suffix to the one already present. Since Bastet would originally mean (female) of the ointment jar, Bast also became the goddess of perfumes and was bestowed with the title perfumed protector.
This gentler characterization led to a decrease in her ferocity. Gradually, she became regarded as a domestic cat rather than a lioness, though sometimes she would still hold a lioness mask. She was also regarded as a good mother, so sometimes she is surrounded by numerous kittens.
So, Bast is cute, yet strong, and her name looks neat in hieroglyphs - that's why I like her.